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Women in Tech

We discuss women's current position in the Tech industry after International Women’s Day

12/03/2015

International Women’s Day was a success in terms of awareness and forced many of us to discuss women's current position in business. The role of women in the tech industry is continuously improving, however to put this into perspective in Silicon Valley;

• There are only 11% of female executives

• On average around 20% of software developers are women

• On the Forbes list of 100 leading tech investors, only four are women

• Only 53% of big tech companies have a woman on their executive management team

It should be noted that the earnings gap between men and women is worse in Silicon Valley, where men earn up to 61% more than women. The tech industry isn’t the worst in regards to under-representation of women but it is enough to draw attention.

Judy Wajcman, a sociologist at the London School of Economics stated that under representation “matters to an even greater extent in Silicon Valley because it is the centre of one of the most powerful industries in the world" she also explained that "you need diverse experiences to make diverse technologies.”

Last summer, Google, Facebook, Apple and other big tech companies released figures showing that men outnumbered women 4 to 1 or more in their technical sectors. Denise Young Smith at Apple recently announced that they will invest more than $50 million into not-for-profit organisations to help improve diversity within the tech industry. $10 million of which will be used to double the number of four-year-degree recipients to reach 10,000 middle school girls over the next few years.

Apple's contribution towards the tech industry will make a positive impact in pushing entry level candidates into the market with their partnership with the National Center for Women and Information Technology (NCWIT). Through this backing and other tech companies pledging to help make a difference let’s hope International Women’s Day continues to make a positive move forward for women in tech.

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